


[Act One] Homestuck: The Novel

by AliceStar



Series: Homestuck: The Novel [With Quirks] [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adaptation, Canon Rewrite, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-11 17:18:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7062145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceStar/pseuds/AliceStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Homestuck is a masterpiece that makes great use of several different mediums. However, this can make it difficult for some people to read. This is a work-in-progress text-only adaptation of Homestuck made for those who want to experience the story but, for any reason, are unable to read it in its original format. Any and all corrections and suggestions are appreciated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Foreword

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Homestuck](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/202549) by Andrew Hussie. 



Homestuck is something special. It is an amalgam of an incredible amount of mediums, genres, and perspectives, and yet, it all manages to form something not only cohesive, but brilliant. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Andrew Hussie for the spectacular amount of effort he put into making Homestuck the fantastic work that so many people have come to cherish. My intention with this project is not to in any way attempt to change the story he has created, but rather to simply make it more accessible. Homestuck is, at its core, a comic, and though it is very text-heavy, it is difficult, if not impossible, to fully experience the story without being able to observe the accompanying visuals. I am writing this in an attempt to create the closest possible entirely text equivalent of Homestuck in its entirety, so that those without the ability to read it in its original state may have the opportunity to experience it. There are some characters in this story that type using “quirks” that some people may find difficulty reading, and that may not be recognized properly by text-to-speech programs. In the interest of staying faithful to the original work, there will be two editions of this adaptation: one including quirks and other instances of unique, difficult-to-read text, and one without. Thank you for your understanding. One final note, this is being made for no profit whatsoever. If you stumble across this text being sold in any way, shape, or form, please contact me at skeledot@gmail.com and I will take the appropriate actions to have the listing removed. If you enjoy this story, and you are financially able, I highly encourage you to support Andrew and the What Pumpkin team in whatever way you can. I understand that a portion of the money they make from Homestuck comes from ad revenue, and by reading the story elsewhere, that money is not provided to them. Please take this into account.  
Without further ado, let me tell you about Homestuck.


	2. Pages 1-19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6 to http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001919

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 6/12! Here is the beginning of Homestuck: The Novel. We are still early along enough that there is time to make major changes, so if anything sticks out to you, please leave a comment and I will do my best to fix any problems you may find! I want this project to be the best it can be, so all feedback is appreciated.  
> Enjoy!

A young man stands in his bedroom. It just so happens that today, the 13th of April, 2009, is this young man's birthday. Though it was thirteen years ago he was given life, it is only today he will be given a name!   
A display appears above the young man's head, and the name “ZOOSMELL POOPLORD” is entered. The suggestion is rejected, and “TRY AGAIN, SMARTASS” flashes in red.   
The name “John Egbert” is entered instead. A green check-mark appears, and the boy smiles, apparently content with his new moniker. 

Your name is JOHN. As was previously mentioned it is your BIRTHDAY. A number of CAKES are scattered about your room. You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for REALLY TERRIBLE MOVIES. You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT. You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE, and are an aspiring AMATEUR MAGICIAN. You also like to play GAMES sometimes. You have dark hair that sticks up and out in several places, rectangular glasses, buck teeth, and a shirt showcasing a green ghost. You are artistically rendered in such a way that someone very silly might make the assumption that you have no arms.

You make an attempt to retrieve your arms from your dresser drawer before having a realization. Your ARMS are in your MAGIC CHEST, pooplord!   
Before anything can be retrieved from the chest, the cake sitting atop it must be removed. Out of sympathy for John's perceived lack of arms, you pick up the CAKE for him and put it on his BED. 

You retrieve your FAKE ARMS from the chest. You use these for HILARIOUS ANTICS.   
You CAPTCHALOGUE them in your SYLLADEX. You have no idea what that actually means though. The FAKE ARMS disappear and instead appear in a handy-looking card.

There are other items in the chest. You decide to examine the contents of the chest.

In here you keep an array of humorous and mystical ARTIFACTS, each one a devastating weapon in the hands of a SKILLED MAGICIAN or a CUNNING PRANKSTER.   
You are neither of these things. 

Among the ARTIFACTS are: TWO (2) FAKE ARMS [CURRENTLY CAPTCHALOGUED IN YOUR SYLLADEX], ONE (1) PAIR OF TRICK HANDCUFFS, ONE (1) STUNT SWORD, ONE (1) MAGICIAN'S HAT, ONE (1) PAIR OF BEAGLE PUSS GLASSES, SEVERAL (~) SMOKE PELLETS, SEVERAL (~) BLOOD CAPSULES, and ONE (1) COPY OF COLONEL SASSACRE'S DAUNTING TEXT OF MAGICAL FRIVOLITY AND PRACTICAL JAPERY, and ONE (1) COPY OF HARRY ANDERSON'S "WISE GUY", BY MIKE CAVENEY. 

Some of this stuff may come in handy at some point. For now, you decide to just take the SMOKE PELLETS. You stow the SMOKE PELLETS on one of your CAPTCHALOGUE CARDS in your SYLLADEX.   
You still aren't totally sure what that means, but you are starting to get the hang of the vernacular at least. You have two empty CAPTCHALOGUE CARDS remaining. 

You attempt to equip the fake arms.  
You aren't totally sure if "EQUIP" is a verb copasetic with the abstract behavioral medium in which you dwell, but you give it a try anyway.   
Unfortunately, you cannot access the FAKE ARMS! Their card is underneath the one you just used to captchalogue the SMOKE PELLETS. You will have to use the pellets first in order to access the arms. But this is probably unadvisable, since you'd just make your room lousy with smoke! 

Your SYLLADEX'S FETCH MODUS is currently dictated by the logic of a STACK DATA STRUCTURE. You were never all that great with data structures and you find the concept puzzling and mildly irritating.   
But with any hope, perhaps you will advance new, more practical FETCH MODI for your SYLLADEX with a little more experience. 

On the wall hangs a poster featuring Problem Sleuth sitting at his desk, smoking a pipe. It is entirely in black and white, aside from a few scattered pieces of candy corn, which are rendered in full color.

Is it even possible to get any more hard boiled than that? You really doubt it. This poster was one of your wisest purchases. 

There is a nice spot on the wall next to it. You've been meaning to hang another poster there soon. 

There is a note on your dresser. You decide to take a look at it.  
The note is crisp, businesslike, and entirely in capital letters. It reads:

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY SON.  
I AM SO PROUD OF YOU.”

This note is rich with the aromas of FATHERLY AFTERSHAVES AND COLOGNES. 

Beside the note is a ROLLED UP POSTER.  
It is swiftly captchalogued.

Another BIRTHDAY ARTIFACT. You wonder what is printed on the poster.   
You'll need some way to hang it on your wall. 

You decide to acquire a hammer and nails. They will come in handy. 

You first place the HAMMER into your SYLLADEX.   
But now all of your CAPTCHALOGUE CARDS are full. You wonder what will happen if you try to take the NAILS?   
You guess it doesn't hurt to try.   
You captchalogue FOUR (4) NAILS into the top card, and push all the ARTIFACTS down a card. 

The FAKE ARMS are pushed entirely out of the deck!!! 

Oh well. They're probably completely useless anyway. But you probably don't want to do that again, unless you want to drop the SMOKE PELLETS and suffer the consequences. 

In any case, you now feel like you have gathered enough things to get down to business and do some really important stuff. The next thing you do will probably be exceptionally meaningful. 

Your first thought is to squawk like an imbecile and shit on your desk.   
This is the dumbest idea you've had in weeks!!!   
STUPID STUPID STUPID.   
And yet the polished surface of your desk...   
It beckons.   
You glance longingly at your desk for a moment before quickly turning away and distracting yourself with a more productive task.  
Like combining the nails and hammer.  
You MERGE the top two cards.   
The HAMMER and NAILS are now captchalogued on the same card and can be used together. 

You use the HAMMER and NAILS card IN CONJUNCTION with the card beneath it. 

In order to nail the poster to the wall, you use the HAMMER, NAILS, and POSTER on the blank space on the wall. 

Your wall now proudly features a magnificent poster showcasing the late-eighties movie “Little Monsters”, with Fred Savage and Howie Mandel.

It's glorious. Exactly what you wanted. The old man really came through this time.


	3. Pages 20-43

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001920 to http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=001943

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the first Pesterlogs! Let me know how you feel about the formatting, and please feel free to leave suggestions as well. Thanks!

You decide to examine some of your other posters, starting with Con Air.

Nic Cage poses dramatically in the center of the poster, surrounded by a rag-tag group of men. Some friends, some enemies, all rugged. Only one thought runs through your mind.

PUT THE BUNNY BACK IN THE BOX. 

I SAID, PUT THE BUNNY BACK IN THE BOX. 

WHY COULDN'T YOU PUT THE BUNNY BACK IN THE BOX? 

A poster for the movie Deep Impact has also earned a spot on your wall, though it is partially obscured by your calendar.

Morgan Freeman's genteel, homespun mannerisms were perfect qualities for a president residing over a crisis. 

OCEANS RISE. CITIES FALL. HOPE SURVIVES. 

WOW. 

Films about impending apocalypse fascinate you. Plus, a black president??? Now you've seen everything! 

You check out your calendar, while you're at it.

You've marked your birthday, the 13th of April. Another day you marked was supposed to be the arrival date for the highly touted SBURB BETA LAUNCH. 

It's been three days already. It's starting to become a sore subject with you. 

You eye one of the many cakes in your room and consider helping yourself to a slice, but...

You are sick to death of cake!!! You've been eating it all day. And you have no intention of clogging your SYLLADEX with it either. The CAKE stays put for now. 

You hear a notice from your COMPUTER. Someone is messaging you. 

 

You pull up to your COMPUTER. This is where you spend most of your time. You decorated your desktop with some rather handsome Ghostbusters-inspired WALLPAPER which you made yourself. You are really proud of it. 

Your desktop is also littered with various PROGRAMMING PROJECT FILES. You are so bad at programming sometimes you wonder why you even bother with it. 

Your PESTERCHUM application is flashing. Someone is trying to get in touch with you. 

You open the Pesterchum 6.0 Chat Client. It is yellow and orange, and features a chumroll, your current chumhandle, and a list of moods. Currently, the mood “Chummy” is selected, and your chumroll features three chums: turntechGodhead, tentacleTherapist, and gardenGnostic.  
It would seem that only one of your CHUMS is logged in. He's sent you a message. 

You open it.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 16:13 -- 

TG: hey so what sort of insane loot did you rake in today  
EB: i got a little monsters poster, it's so awesome. i'm going to watch it again today, the applejuice scene was so funny.  
TG: oh hell that is such a coincidence i just found an unopened container of apple juice in my closet it is like fucking christmas up in here  
EB: ok thats fine, but i just have one question and then a word of caution. have you ever seen a movie called little monsters starring howie mandel and fred savage?  
TG: but  
TG: the seal on the bottle is unbroken  
TG: are you suggesting someone put piss in my apple juice at the factory  
EB: all im saying is don't you think monster howie mandel has the power to do something as simple as reseal a bottle?  
EB: try using your brain numbnuts.  
TG: why did the fat kid or whoever drank it know what piss tasted like  
TG: i mean his reaction was nigh instantaneous  
EB: it was the 15th day in a row howie mandel peed in his juice.  
TG: ok i can accept that  
TG: monster B-list celebrity douchebags are cunning and persistent pranksters  
TG: also fred savage has a really punchable face  
TG: but who cares about this lets stop talking about it  
TG: did you get the beta yet  
EB: no.  
EB: did you?  
TG: man i got two copies already  
TG: but i dont care im not going to play it or anything the game sounds boring  
TG: did you see how it got slammed in game bro????  
EB: game bro is a joke and we both know it.  
TG: yeah  
TG: why dont you go check your mail maybe its there now  
EB: alright. 

 

You peer out your window and get a good look at your yard.

Hanging from the tree is your TIRE SWING. In a kid's yard, a tree without a tire swing is like a proper gentleman without a monocle. That is to say, HE CAN HARDLY BE CONSIDERED A TERRIBLY PROPER GENTLEMAN AT ALL. 

And there beside your driveway is the mailbox.

The little red arm-swingy-dealy thing or whatever it is called is flipped up!  
What the hell is that thing called anyway. You do not have time for these semantics. The red flippy-lever thing means you have new mail. And that means the beta might be here! 

You are about to hurry down stairs when you hear a car pull into the driveway. It looks like your DAD has returned from the grocery store. 

Oh great. He is beating you to the mail. 

If you go down stairs to get it, he will likely monopolize hours of your time. You decide to chill out up here for a while until the dust settles. 

Sometimes you feel like you are trapped in this room. Stuck, if you will, in a sense which possibly borders on the titular. 

And now your chum is pestering you again. The clockwork of friendship turns ceaselessly, operating the swing-lever dealies of harassment in perpetuity! 

Whatever. The dude can just hold his damn horses. 

In the meantime, you continue to examine your room.

You ogle your CD rack and find several games, including Bard Quest, The Caper Havers, Problem Sleuth, And It Don't Stop, Jailbreak Adventure, the Ghostbusters II MMORPG, Little Monsters: The Video Game, and Harry Anderson's “Call My Bluff!”  
Wow! What a selection. You've put countless manhours into this assortment of quality titles. 

You find yourself remembering Colonel Sassacre's Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery. You decide to consult with the Colonel's bottomless wisdom. Good grief this thing is huge. It could kill a cat if you dropped it. Also, the color scheme of the cover is, quite frankly, nightmarish.

But to really dig into this hefty book, you will have to captchalogue it. You are not sure you are ready to logjam your other ARTIFACTS beneath it just yet. 

For a moment, you think it might be a bright idea to captchalogue the fake arms again, but what did you just say?? You don't want to clog up your... 

Oh, Jesus. In a momentary lapse of concentration, you accidentally captchalogue the arms again. 

You feel the immediate need to express your frustration in some way. Like, perhaps, changing your status on the internet. 

You don't think the situation is quite dire enough to go all the way to "RANCOROUS", but you still feel the PESTERCHUM client should reflect your mood change in some way. 

"BULLY" will have to do. You guess. 

This unsurprisingly does nothing whatsoever. 

Oh, right, you forgot your chum is still pestering you. 

You decide to check back in with him.

TG: is it there  
TG: plz say yes  
TG: maybe you can play with TT shes been pestering me all day about it  
TG: shes mackin on me so hard all the time i start to feel embarrassed for her  
TG: i mean not that i can blame her or anything  
EB: yes, it is understandable because you are really attractive. i am attracted to you.  
TG: thank you  
EB: jk haha.  
EB: no, i don't have it yet.  
EB: my dad has the mail and i guess i have to go get it from him and see if it's there.  
EB: and i've been busy spending all afternoon shitting around with my stupid sylladex.  
EB: it's so frustrating.  
TG: whats your modus  
EB: what?  
TG: how do you retrieve artifacts from it  
EB: oh. like one at a time i guess. and if i put too much in, something falls out.  
TG: stack?? hahahahahaha  
EB: what is yours?  
TG: hash map  
TG: my bro taught me a few tricks he basically knows everything and is awesome  
EB: what the hell is that?  
TG: you should probably brush up on your data structures  
EB: i guess.  
TG: did you at least allocate your strife specibus  
EB: no.  
TG: it could free up a card for you  
TG: plus let you attack stuff whenever things get too hot to handle  
TG: which is never  
TG: what have you got  
EB: well, i've got a hammer but it's trapped under some arms.  
TG: wow you really suck at this dont you  
TG: just get rid of the arms and then allocate the hammer to the specibus  
EB: how?  
TG: i dont know just use the arms on any old thing and see if it works 

You stick the FAKE ARMS in the CAKE on your bed. 

This definitely makes the CAKE at least 300% more hilarious. You're sure COLONEL SASSACRE would know the precise index of elevated hilarity. 

That aside, you attempt to allocate the hammer to your strife specibus.

You check the back of your STRIFE SPECIBUS for the KIND ABSTRATUS you have in mind for it. There is quite an extensive list of options.

After some searching, you select “HAMMER”.

Your STRIFE SPECIBUS has been ALLOCATED with the HAMMERKIND ABSTRATUS. 

The HAMMER has been moved from your CAPTCHALOGUE DECK to your STRIFE DECK. 

Feeling accomplished, you report back to TG.

EB: ok, i did it.  
TG: hammerkind?  
EB: yeah.  
TG: ok that will be the permanent allocation for your specibus  
TG: i guess i should have mentioned that  
EB: uh...  
TG: hope you like hammers dude!  
EB: yeah, that's fine i guess. i can't imagine it's going to be all that relevant. 

Now that you've got some space in your SYLLADEX to work with, you figure you might as well start squandering it immediately. You captchalogue Colonel Sassacre's big book.  
Ordinarily this ridiculous book would be way too heavy to carry around in any practical way. You guess maybe this is one respect in which the cards present some convenience. 

You decide to examine this month's issue of Game Bro magazine.  
“GAME BRO” is plastered across the front in huge, red letters. Below it is the logo for SBURB, and the headline “Why the 'Game of the Year' or whatever isn't as good as some other stuff I like that's better.”

You flip to the main article in this issue, a review of SBURB. At the top of the page, “GAME BRO FEATURE” is written, accompanied by several images of skateboarders and cyclists with “extreme” motion blur applied.

The article reads:

“So ok.

SBURB is this game that a lot of cats seem hella pumped of. And this beta is sitting on my desk for review, so I'm like, yeah man I'll write something.

But I don't know. I'm like, so this is about houses or some noise? That's fine, I'm sure that's like fucking dynamite in a handbag for some brosephs. But all I'm saying is, when do you get to thrash anything? While you're playing house or some shit, are you ever in jeopardy of getting mud on your doll's dress or whatever from busting out, and I quote, “the mad stunts all wicked up-ins?”

Know what I'm saying, Bro-Yo Ma? I didn't actually play this game, but I gave it 1.5 hats out of 5 hats to keep it real. 

At this point I'd like to give a shout out to my boy Dennis who was over the other day. We were going to chill in front of The Dark Knight and he was so psyched of it y'all.

So this one time he was leaning against the screen door and the shit popped open, and the back deck was wet and he slipped down the steps and broke his thumb on the lawn. It wasn't a long fall, but hey I guess a thumb bone wasn't made for supporting the brunt of a huge useless tool against wet grass. We never did watch Dark Knight on account of Ron trucking his bawling candy-ass girth to the hospital.

But it's cool, I still got another watch in me, Brotel Rwanda.

BRO-NOTES: Dennis was so wasted, ha ha. I mean damn.

Rating for SBURB: 1.5/5 Hats”

 

You captchalogue the magazine. It might come in handy if you ever need something that burns easily.


End file.
